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Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Jay Gatsby's way of loving, or the dilemma between pushing harder and giving up

Sometimes we want something. Or someone.

We don't know exactly why, or we know that it is for the wrong reasons and that we shouldn't want that thing or that someone.

But we can't help but trying anyway to win the game and to reach the object of our affection.Angry, and half in love with her, and tremendously sorry, I turned away.

Francis Scott Fitzgerald [1896-1940]

Is the time we invest in it worth it?

Is the energy we spend for it worth it?

Is the pain we accept to feel for it worth it?

[The perfect example of wanting someone for the wrong reasons

and losing one's way because of it:

Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan)

in The Great Gatsby (2013) by Baz Luhrmann]

Sometimes yes. Other times, absolutely not.

And yet, we are still there, willing to go further, to invest more time, to spend more energy, to feel sad and tired and miserable. To try again and again, even if we don't experience success at all.

Even if we feel like a big failure because of it.

In such a situation it is sometimes easy to think that we should just try harder, work harder, push harder and keep fighting for what we want.

That we should stay and that we are going to reach it at last, just like magic. For sure...

It may be. Under certain circumstances, it may happen that pushing harder is the right solution.

Under other circumstances, it is not. Period.

Feeling a failure can be necessary, once in a while.

It helps to not lose touch with reality. Not to lose one's way. Not to make very huge mistakes.

[Something very important to learn in one's life:

being able to just let go]

Sometimes the best thing that can happen to us is to realize, suddenly, that nope, that something or that someone is not worth our time, our energy, our pain.

That we deserve something better or just something different. And that's time to move on, at last. Giving up and letting something or someone go is the best solution ever, in those cases.

Maybe we are not always as fast as we should be while doing it, but to me, the most important part is just doing it.

Being honest enough to give up.

Being ready to accept the uncertainty, the frustration, the sense of loss usually related to giving up.

Being brave enough to give up and let someone or something go is scary and difficult and complicated. And most of the time, it hurts. A lot.

But staying in the situation and trying to go further at any cost just because we invested so much of ourselves in it so far would hurt much more than that. It would cost more. It would damage us more. It would lead to more pain and more problems and so on, in a real vicious circle.

[The only vicious circle you should pay attention to:

Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994) by Alan Rudolph

starring Jennifer Jason Leigh (Dorothy Parker)

and Campbell Scott (Robert Benchley)]

The take-away? Ask yourself more often if you should let something or someone go. And then be honest with yourself and accept the answer.

If you need to go, just do it. Sooner or later, but please do. When exactly, is way less important.